I Woke Up In Love This Morning
Short stories
By
Jennifer Kathleen Gibbons
I Woke Up In Love This Morning
Smashwords Edition
Copyright 2012 by Jennifer Kathleen Gibbons
Cover design by Renphoto/Rose Daniels
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
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For the girls:
Laurel Benjamin, Meranda Broder, Susan Browne, Jean Cobb, Elizabeth Davis, Heather Harlan Greenwalt, Lilly-Marie Lamar, Ivory Madison, Molly McEnerney,Joyce O’Connor,Sericea Vasankari and Laura Zink.
We are definitely the ones people are talking about when they say girls rule.
Table of Contents
I Woke Up In Love This Morning
I Am Woman, Hear Me Roar!
My first period made its debut in July, 1984. I was twelve, in bed after I just got back from doing my paper route, trying to go back to sleep. I was having the worst cramps. I had them all summer, but that morning was the worst. Before that morning, I counted out loud when I had them, trying to distract myself. One two three… by ten the cramps would be gone. That morning the cramps had no end. Twenty, thirty, forty, fifty. Tears formed in my eyes. God, make it stop, please!
Then I felt this whoosh between my legs. The cramps drifted away from my body, like a boat leaving the port. I waved good-bye to them and I fell asleep.
That summer Mom was temping, so some days she had off. My younger brother Patrick was at day camp so we watched the soaps, and then hit the bargain matinees if we had money. We were watching Guiding Light as Reva danced around in her slip, snapping her fingers, declaring herself the Slut of Springfield. I had to go to pee. I was licking a Popsicle, the chocolate melting all over my hands.
In the bathroom I pulled down my underpants, then I looked down and I saw something red. I realized it was blood. For a moment I just stared at my underpants, like it wasn’t real. Blood! My blood, from my body!
OH MY GOD!!!!! I GOT MY PERIOD!!!!!
I peed and I ran out of the bathroom, dropping my Popsicle on the floor. “Mom! Mom! I got my period!”
“What?”
“I got my period! Want to see?”
“Oona, I don’t want to look! Are you sure?”
“I’m positive. I got it.”
She hugged me. “Do you need any help putting on a pad?”
“God, Mom, I can do it. I’m not a baby.”
“You can use one of mine. We’ll run by Walgreen’s today and buy you a box of your own.” Mom hid her box of pads in the linen closet behind the towels. I took the box out and I studied the box. It had a picture of a pretty blonde woman running around on the beach in white pants.
“Want to go out to lunch?” Mom asked.
“Can we afford it?”
“Yeah.”
“Can we go to Evie’s?”
“Sure.”
I went back to the bathroom and put the pad on. I looked at myself in the mirror. Oona Maureen Ryan, you are a woman. This is proof that you are a woman. I didn’t see a woman. I saw a twelve-year-old girl with tangled red hair, a chocolate mustache, and two huge pimples on her chin that were ready to pop.
It only lasted two days. I kept on thinking why do women go on and on what a hassle it is? This is easy!
In August it didn’t come. A week after school started, I woke up at 5:30 to do my paper route. My thighs felt moist. For a moment I thought I’d wet the bed. I turned on the light. Blood was over my sheets, my thighs, my quilt, and my nightgown. “Mom! Mom, help me!”
My little brother Patrick ran into the room. “What’s the matter?” He stepped closer to the bed. “Man, did you stab yourself or what?”
“Get out of here, you little brat!” I shrieked.
Mom came in. “What is going on?” She looked at my bed. “Oh, God. Patrick, go back to bed.”
“Why do I have to go back to bed?” Patrick whined.
“Because I said so. Now go!” He trudged out of my room.
“Mom, I didn’t know it could get this messy!”
“Well, it’s one of those things you learn in time.” She said, as she started to take the sheets off the bed. “Why don’t you take a bath? I’ll have to put your bedding in the washer.”
“Mom, I can’t go to school today! I can’t!”
She didn’t say anything. She scooped up my sheets in her arms. “Mom, please! Everyone will know!”
“How will everyone know?” She asked.
“They just will! Where would I put my pads? I don’t have a purse! I can’t go to school! I can’t!” I felt a little hysterical. But I saw people at school, I could see their faces: look at Oona! She has her period! Isn’t that gross?
My mother sighed. “All right. I guess you can stay home this time. You have to do your paper route, though, okay?”
“Okay.”
In the bathtub I washed myself, wondering if I would ever get used to my period coming every month. At first I thought I would like it, like seeing an old friend. The books I read never talked about waking up in a pool of blood at 5:30 in the morning. I sank deeper in the hot water. There has to be an easier way to be a woman, I decided. There has to be.
I stayed home and watched soaps. The next month I realized I was being a bit melodramatic. I carried my pads in my backpack, near my Norma Klein novels and social studies book. I was terrified that everyone knew I had my period. I wondered if all girls felt weird; to know this thing is going on inside your body and you can’t explain it.
My fears came true in May one Friday. I was in PE, playing volleyball. I was in the front row in the court and for some reason all the boys in the back row were pointing at me and laughing. I couldn’t understand why. After ten minutes Tanya Randolph ran over to me and asked: “Hey, Oona, can I talk to you for a minute?”
“Sure!” I figured she had some good gossip for me.
We stepped out of the court. She whispered in my ear: “Oona, you just got your period. It’s all over your shorts.”
Oh no! How could this happen? I tried to keep track of when it was going to come. How could I make such a mistake? “Don’t worry-it’s all going to be okay.” She gave me her jacket. “Put this over your jeans. I’ll tell Mrs. Sarnoff what’s going on. You want me to go with you to the office?”
“No, that’s okay. Thanks, though.”
As I walked to the office, I could hear the boys laughing. I felt the tears on my face, even though I wasn’t crying.
We didn’t have a nurse. We had two secretaries who performed nurse duties: Mary the Head Secretary and the vice-principal’s secretary Anna Louise. I walked up to the desk where Mary was on the phone. “Hi, I just got my…”
“Hold on a sec, hon.” She started to talk on the phone again. “I swear, there are no good movies out there! How about Vision Quest? Madonna is in that one.”
I looked over to Anna Louise. She was filing her nails. “Excuse me,” I said to her, “but I…”
“Can’t it wait a minute?” She said, not even looking up from her nails.
I sighed. Get me through this, God.
After five minutes, Mary hung up and said: “Can I help you? Do you have a pass?”
I said, my voice barely audible: “I got my period, and…”
“I can’t hear you, honey! Speak up!”
“I got my period and…”
“Oh!” Mary stood up. “Follow me, hon.”
I did, to the sick room. They had Band-Aids, a cot, a bathroom, and Pepto-Bismol. She went in a closet and gave me a pad. “Change in the bathroom, okay?”
“No, wait…”
“Is this your first time, hon?”
“No.” I took off the jacket and turned around. She saw the blood. “Oh dear.Want to call your mom?”
“Yes, please.”
“Phone is by the window. Dial nine to get out, okay hon?”
She walked back to her desk. I dialed Mom’s office. She had gotten a job as a receptionist at a magazine six months before.
“Bay Area Living, this is Lillian Ryan. How may I help you?”
“Mom?”
“Oona? What’s the matter?”
“I got my period and it’s all over my pants and all the boys saw and I want to go home, Mommy!” I said in a rush.
“I’ll be right there. Tell them you have cramps or something and I’ll come to get you in half an hour.”
“Hurry, please!”
“I will, darling.”
I hung up. Mary walked back in. “Did you get somebody?”
“Yeah, but I’m having cramps. I want to go home. My mom is going to pick me up.”